The Prime Minister of Canada, Justin Trudeau has declared a national emergency in response to the truckers’ protests that have been ongoing in Canada against several Coronavirus related measures such as vaccination mandates.
Justin Trudeau, the Prime Minister of Canada has declared a national emergency in his country as part of his response to the ongoing protests by truckers. He made the announcement that invoked the Emergency Act that was first enacted in 1988 and has never been used ever since in the history of the nation. The agitation by the truckers has entered 18th day and the Prime Minister said that they cannot allow illegal and dangerous activities to be continued in Ottawa. The emergency powers have come into immediate effect and will be lasting for almost 30 days.
Among the measures that will be taken as part of the emergency powers that will be applied will be stronger tools for the enforcement of the law to disengage gatherings of protestors such as major border trade routes that connect Canada to the United States of America. Additionally, the Act will be allowing the government to go after the platforms that are crowdfunding and the payment processors that have been used by the Freedom Convey 2022 to fund the ongoing protests and urge the financial institutions to freeze the account of all such individuals or organizations that have been linked to the agitation.
The announcement for the declaration of the emergency act came after the rising pressure from the government of the Unites States of America on the Canadian Prime Minister to act expeditiously to deal with the ongoing crisis in the nation which has affected the trucking routes of the nation to Canada’s four major provinces namely British Columbia, Manitoba, Ontario, and Alberta.
The Right groups expressed their concerns over such actions via Twitter stating that the Federal Government has not met the threshold that is necessary to invoke the Emergencies act. They believe that this law usually creates a high and clear standard for good reason, this emergency act allows the union government to bypass the ordinary democratic processes but this standard has so far not been met by the government.
The Canadian Prime Minister also spoke about the reputational damage Canada had to suffer due to the ongoing protests in the nation and said that the opposition to all vaccine-related issues was something that democracies around the world were concerned about. He further tweeted that the scope of these measures that have been taken by the government will be time-limited, geographically targeted and proportionate to the threats they are meant to address. He added that this act will be used to strengthen and support the law enforcement agencies across the nation at all levels of government.
The federal action regarding emergency came after a state emergency had to be declared in Ontario last week following one in the capital as well. Trudeau believes that this is no longer a lawful protest but has turned into an illegal occupation.
